


Cut You Down

by BurningChrØme (Tear_U_Apart)



Series: Life's One Long Serving of Shitburgers [2]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Death, Homelessness, One Part Original Fiction | One Part Original Nonfiction, Poverty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-02
Updated: 2019-10-02
Packaged: 2020-11-22 06:29:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20869715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tear_U_Apart/pseuds/BurningChr%C3%98me
Summary: There are many ways to say goodbye to a friend.





	Cut You Down

* * *

"I still can't believe it."

"You should." The man in a gray suit says lowly as though he were afraid of being reprimanded if he used more volume. Or perhaps it's more like he doesn't want his words to be heard much. "This is about as real as it gets. We're all headed here. One way or another."

"Still, this isn't what I pictured." The woman looks around at the funeral home's lobby or maybe it's just considered a gathering area. It feels like a somber hotel with cheap furniture. It's too quiet too. Library's aren't this quiet. "And it's for damn sure not what I would want."

The man in the grey suit fiddles with the knot of his tie, "What did you think it was going to look like?"

The woman turns her head and rolls her eyes while she smoothes her hand down the front of her dress. She's not a slim as she would like to be; she hates her little belly pooch. The woman frowns slightly, her dress feels too cheerful for the surroundings; too yellow, too patterned. But she just couldn't make herself wear something more appropriate for this occasion. Somber is depressing.

"Don't take that tone with me." The woman clenches her teeth. "I meant that I can't believe that they killed themself."

The man in the gray suit tugs on the knot of his tie again, "You read the note the same as I did."

The woman brushes some of her hair behind her ear and sighs, "Would you've done anything if they'd asked you for help beforehand?"

The man in the gray suit is compelled to lie. He wants to more than anything with how he's been sleeping since he got the news. But glancing around the modest funeral home that kind of thing is just not going to cut it now. He went cheap for his late friend. He's not well off but he is comfortable and he intends to stay that way.

"No, but I would've if they'd asked." The man in the grey suit can say whatever he wants to now. What's done is done. "Even though they wouldn't have want that. They never mentioned a thing. But then I hadn't spoken to them in months."

The woman crosses her arms over her chest, "Then why are you pretending to be hurt?"

Wordlessly, the man in the gray suit reaches out and gently grabs the woman by her wrist and pulls her along with him towards the empty viewing chapel across the hallway. The place smells like plastic flowers and woodsoap. The rows of seats look like old pews liberated from some defunct church that the deity and the penitent followers have long since written off. The woman shrugs off the man's hand on her and he sighs heavily. A loud exhale in a too quiet space.

"They were homeless." The man in the grey suit hisses out lowly. The woman is unimpressed since that's something she already knew. "They had no money left, no food, no job prospects. I mean you saw their laptop's browser history and email too." The man in the gray suit isn't lying anymore. This is something he doesn't have to lie about. He's far too thankful that this isn't his story that he's telling. "Thirty-two months of applying for every low paying entry level job within the distance they could afford to drive and nothing. Not one damn thing. What the hell were they supposed to do? It was the last option even if it's shit too."

The woman's right eye twitches, "But you're the one paying to have them cremated."

The man in the gray suit shakes his head and looks off towards the front the front of the room they're standing in, "Someone has to. And they said they were sorry about that." The man in the gray suit focuses or rather imagines that's where an alter would be or in this case a coffin open for viewing. That won't be happing though. The man in the grey suit reaches up to rub at his eyes. "You remember from the note they tried to get some shit job to save up to pay for it. But that plan fell through too."

The woman's eyes widen, "Are you cryin'?"

"Hell yeah, we're here to pick up the damn ashes!" The man in the gray suit surreptitiously wipes under his eyes with the back of his hand. This kind of thing has left him just as angry as he is sad. "I don't care if it's too late to feel like shit about it. But a friend killed themselves because they couldn't find room in this damn world to live!"

The man in the gray suit takes a deep breath and absently runs his hand down the front of his tie this time. The smooth silk is slick under his fingertips. He can't help but think of the letter the police handed to him in a thick clear plastic baggie with a red evidence seal along the top. It only takes a second for it to occur to him that he may always think about his friends suicide note for the rest of his days. The paper was old and torn on two of the ends. It had been folded and then refolded at least five times. The bright blue ink seemed all wrong for a suicide note.

* * *

_When I sat down to do this I realized that I don't want you to feel sorry for me any more than you already do. I even tried to get a job in fast food and save up to pay for the aftermath. I'm sorry that I couldn't even land that. So this suicide letter is all about my last day and handling instructions for when somebody gets around to noticing my deadbody behind the wheel of an illegally parked car._

_You know you've passed to something low when you're living in your car. The only thing I know worse than that is sleeping in the street. I know no one is ever ready for this but I'm asking you to be because you're all I got. So here we go and I'll try to make this good and believable for the five-o since they'll read it first. What a critic to have, am I right? Here we go. Or here I go and then some._

_A friend of ours, you know them, was going on a month long vacation (lucky shit) and when I asked who was covering for them at work they said: "I don't know and I don't care." Right away I thought to myself you're stupid. What would happen to you if you came back from your little vacation to find you were rendered unemployed? Then your ungrateful ass would be out like me and then you would know how it to tread in some seriously shitty water. Or worse drown in it. Anyways, they've had their job for several years and they don't know what it's like out there now._

_Not like I do. Not unless they read the news and then choose to give a shit about what they read. People talk all day long but nobody does anything. And let's not forget all the redundant bullshit that occurs in the job interview process if you're lucky enough to get one. In my mind a person can either do the job or not and there's always a learning curve. That's what an employer is supposed to be paying them for and if it doesn't work out you can always fire them or they quit because it's not a good fit. Nowadays it's all about who you know not what you know._

_And why does every recruiter think it's alright to ask someone: 'Where do you see yourself in five or ten years?' I guess a coached person with lots of life cushioning can bluff it to get in but I never knew how to answer that question. There ain't no permanence in this life. Thoughts of the future were abstract to me. The closest I got to planning for the future was saving what money I could for when things would turn to shit. I guess my subconscious knew from the get-go that my time was going to be pointless. At my last interview, years ago now, I said that in five years I would hopefully be dead. The recruiter looked like he swallowed his tongue. It was a beautiful sight._

_Today I went to the bank to take out the last of my money. All two hundred and twenty-six dollars and seventy-two cents of it, to live as large as I could, until I took care of business for the last time. And don't try and tell me that Death isn't business cause it is. Just ask any one who works in the funeral industry. For them Death pays the bills. Maybe one day when all of us are in poverty (except the top 1%) then the rich 'elite' won't have fresh revenue coming in cause there won't be any more little people left to buy their shit._

_Back to my story about going to the bank, so the nice lady at the bank who was closing out my account started talking about how great my penmanship was and I told her about my failed education and failed everything. I wanted to cry when she started callin' my menial and outdated skills a 'gift'. I told her in the nicest possible way that I could never get hired for anything I was qualified for. I told her I struggled to get by and then I couldn't get out of the place fast enough. She didn't get it and I'm glad for her. Nobody should have to live like this. Nobody, nowhere on this Earth._

_After the bank I bought the main course of my last meal next. And I wish I could say I had the imagination to go for some fine cuisine that I could never afford but I didn't. You can only stretch your funds so far. I had a loaded pizza and I bought some expensive alcohol even though I don't really drink it. I played all my favorite songs over and over again while I ate in my car. My home. It's a good thing my old car was paid for and I took care of it or I'd been shit outta luck sooner. I sat in my car enjoying the heat, my meal; idling my old car on what little fuel it had left._

_After eating the perfect thick crust super supreme I went to the discount store to buy the other junk that wanted for my last meal. Like I said no imagination. But what can you do when there's nothing left? To top off my shopping experience the young kid behind the register asked me if I was old enough for the senior discount. I wanted to scream 'I ain't even forty yet!'. But I guess how I looked says it all. I was so past pissed the fuck off but I didn't say anything because the alternative was being embarrassed in public and I don't play that shit. When I got out in the parking lot I threw my cheap processed shit, that's not really food, in the trunk of my car._

_In the end I didn't eat much though of what I bought; mostly just the pizza which I savored. I've been fighting with my fat body and losing all my life, so splurging on a large carbo-load was the closest I'll get to manna from heaven on this Earth. And I know when you die your shit and piss comes out so I didn't want to make an even bigger mess for someone else to clean. I mean I'm doing my deed outside but a mess is a mess no matter where the hell it is. I can't imagine being worse off than I am then being sick too and scraping by in some way on top of it all. Your days are numbered for sure if that's the kind of life your trapped in. I'm tired of being trapped._

_This might be too much information but I'm only human so I thought about getting laid one last time. I talked myself out of it though. Nobody wanted me much before so why would they now even if I did pay for it? Paying for it isn't really that bad though. Technically you're paying for it every time you go out on a date whether you get some or not. After an hour of thinking it over I realized I was far from being in the mood to get any good out of all the stickiness. How would that have gone anyway? I foresaw a sad, sad scenario and I chose to hold onto what scrap of dignity I had left even though no one had touched me in years._

_So there's exactly one hundred and ninety six dollars in the glove box and my laptop is under the driver's seat of my car along the bottle of booze I bought. The password to my computer is on the post-it note stuck to the screen. You should have that too. I know the money won't make a dent in having my worthless ass sanitized by fire off this miserable place but it's what I got left to give you. I wish I had more to show for myself but I don't. You have my permission to go as cheap as they come. I'm dead and I stopped caring a long time ago. What comes next is anyone's guess but it can't be much worse. Truth be told I don't care if it is._

_I feel like you should know that you were a good friend to someone like me who most people wouldn't hesitate to call trash. I mean, I know I wasn't trash. I know what real trash looks and acts like and none of that scene was me. You know that too. But at the same time I couldn't change my circumstances no matter what I tried. The one great thing about this letter is I can finally say that if only my mother had gotten an abortion or better yet not let whoever she was seeing on the sly nut in her then I wouldn't have done what I did. But you know that already too._

_You know when people rant about abortion I thought that they needed a fucking clue what it's like to grow up an unwanted child who is constantly reminded of that fact. I know they don't. It's the whole walking in my shoes thing and nobody should want to unless it's just for perspective. Damn this has gotten long but then this is my last chance to have a say. So I have one last request or instructions if that sounds better to you. After you have me cremated throw my ashes wherever you want. Flush em' for all I care. But whatever you do could you play: 'Ghetto Bastard (Everything's Gonna Be Alright)' as loud as you can stand it because its a damn good theme song for me. I couldn't think of another to sum me up._

_Well, that's it I guess. I know you'll be alright. Maybe if there is real mercy in this life everyone will, someday, but not today or anytime soon. But that's just life through my lens. I hope I'm wrong._


End file.
